Why Does Magneto Join Apocalypse’s Horsemen?
Fox is set to destroy the world when X-men Apocalypse hits theaters this May with the popular villain of the same name, out to judge humanity based on the Darwinian Principle of Survival of the Fittest. Accompanying this classic x-men villain as one of his four Horsemen is Michael Fassbender’s Erik Lehnsherr or more commonly known as Magneto. IGN’s Joshua Yehl, recently sat down with Mr. Fassbender to discuss Magneto’s choice in siding with the baddest of mutants this side of Marvel U. Be warned,
Minor SPOILERS LIE AHEAD…
Last we saw of Fassbender’s Magneto, he failed at an attempt to kill President Nixon in an effort to show the world that mutants should be feared [see movie, X-men: Days of Future Past]. He flees the scene and the movie for him, ends. Unlike Xavier, who leaves with his X-men, Erik is on his own, left with no mission and a shattered dream of fighting for mutant injustice. Fassbender says that after Days of Future Past, “There’s nothing left for him, where does he go? To start in this place and really take him out of everything we’ve seen before — working in a factory where he could use his powers but he’s doing things manually, almost like a penance thing.” Magneto has never been one to surrender, so to hear from Fassbender that Magneto has abandoned his cause to fight for mutant injustice was a surprise. Magneto is, “basically living a normal life, has a family, has fallen in love and has basically disappeared for the last eight years or so, doesn’t use his powers, has left that life behind and lives a very sort of simple life.” So how does this peaceful family man return to his life as a killer? While we won’t know until the movie releases later this year, Fassbender did say “[Erik] come to a point where he’s been pushed to that place where he doesn’t care anymore. He’s kind of dead inside.” It sounds as though the loss of his new family will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back; not only returning Magneto to the zealot of a mutant cause, but we could see him in a place just as emotionally dark as his time in the Jewish Concentration Camps.
Tragedy is nothing new for this Jewish child who grew up during the rise of Nazi Germany. Its a result of this tragic life that spurned Erik to become the mutant villain known as Magneto, as shown in X-men: First Class. In the comics, Erik witnessed more than Jewish persecution while on his way to donning the red helmet. During his time as a Mossad Agent [Israeli Secret Service], his European “Control” unit murdered his girlfriend in front of him because of an act of disobedience on Erik’s part. This was one of several catalyst that warped the young mutant into believing that there was a war going on between humans and mutants and that someone needed to lead the mutant cause. It appears that some inspiration has been taken from this tragedy in the character’s life to push Fassbender’s Magneto over the edge. “I’m gonna bring as much pain to the human race as they’ve brought me and,’ basically, ‘wipe them out once and for all,” Fassbender said regarding Erik’s motivations for joining Apocalypse’s Horsemen.
Despite his allegiance to Apocalypse, Fassbender states that “He’s not really into making friends.” This is a stark contrast to the Brotherhood he created at the end of First Class which showed Magneto gathering his own team of mutants to fight against humans for mutant rights. And in Days of Future Past, where he displayed such anger and sorrow towards Xavier when discussing the many deaths that took place in the time between the two films. “There’s not like any need for him to bond or any of that. This is something that’s helping him. It’s a sharp tool and he’s behind it.” And what a tool he will become. Just as in the comics, Apocalypse will augment and boost all of his horsemen’s abilities, leaving Magneto with much more power than we have seen him use in any of the 6 films.
It can be argued that there is no character that more emphasizes the conflict of being different and being hated, more than Magneto. Over the years he has evolved from a classic villain to a much more rich and complex anti-hero, out for a cause in which many can relate and sympathize with. He has been a champion for mutant rights and equality as well as a supporter of genocide. Magneto’s methods can often be extreme, yet because of his storied past, the contradiction of fighting for the rights of the minority by exterminating the majority causes an inner turmoil that not only Magneto struggles with at times, but one that the reader and viewer can sympathize with as well. Over the last two movies, we have seen Michael Fassbender exemplify the contradictory nature of Magneto’s journey to do what he believes to be right for mutants at the cost of the lives of others. It will be interesting to see how far Magneto has fallen when X-men Apocalypse releases in theaters everywhere on May 27th, 2016.
By the end of X-men: Apocalypse, we will see Magneto redeemed or will his actions make it hard for even himself to forgive? Comment Below.